


When It All Feels So Big

by notsomagicath



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Adopted Children, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Kindergarten & Pre-school, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Bee and Abby are best friends, Childhood Friends, Cute Kids, Domestic Fluff, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kevin Aaron and Andrew are 6, Kid Aaron Minyard, Kid Andrew Minyard, Kid Fic, Kid Kevin Day, Kid Neil Josten, King Fluffkins and Sir Fat Cat McCatterson are stuffed animals, Light Angst, Little League Exy, Neil is 5, No Romance, Not Canon Compliant, POV Betsy Dobson, playdate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24394783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsomagicath/pseuds/notsomagicath
Summary: “Remember,” Bee reminds them as they approach their neighbor’s house, “Abby and David adopted Neil only a month ago, so this is his first time meeting some new friends. He’s only a year younger than you. Be nice, okay? And don’t push too much if he’s shy. If you don’t know if he’ll be okay with a hug or something like that, just ask him yes or no first.”“Okay,” the twins chorus back, before sprinting towards the door in hopes of pressing the doorbell first.(Aaron wins, but it’s a close thing.)“Well hello, kiddos!” Abby answers the door with a grin. “David! Kevin! Neil! The Dobsons are here!”
Relationships: (but they're only five and six year olds so it's more platonic than anything), Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Betsy Dobson & Aaron Minyard, Betsy Dobson & Abby Winfield & David Wymack, Kevin Day & Aaron Minyard, Kevin Day & Neil Josten, Neil Josten & Abby Winfield, Neil Josten & Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten & David Wymack, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 47
Kudos: 498





	When It All Feels So Big

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song So Big / So Small from Dear Evan Hansen

After over four years of parenting, Bee Dobson should’ve known that two six-year-olds would take much longer than expected to get ready. 

“Andrew! Aaron!” she calls up to the twins’ shared room. “We don’t want to be late!” 

“But I can’t find my racquets!” Aaron shouts back, a crash sounding from where the toy basket had almost certainly been pushed over. 

“Okay, but five more minutes! If you can’t find the racquets, we can just borrow the Wymacks’ gear!”  
“But I wanna share _mine,_ and Kev’s are too big for me!” 

“Mommy, I’m ready,” Andrew announces a moment later, dragging a familiar cloud of orange fluff down the stairs. 

“Drew, honey, don’t drag King Fluffkins on the floor. She’s going to get dirty, and we don’t have time to put her in the washing machine before your playdate.” 

“FOUND IT,” Aaron yells triumphantly, racquets in hand for a second before promptly dropping them down the stairs, narrowly missing Andrew’s foot. 

Andrew frowns up at his twin for a moment before resuming his walk towards the door. 

“Careful, hon, you have to make sure you stay safe on the stairs.” 

“Okay mommy,” Aaron grins brightly as he collects the little league racquets from the stairs as he passes. 

Nearly ten minutes later, after a couple more dropped racquets (Bee found a bag big enough to put them in) and a lost shoe (the velcro had caught on another shoe under the shoe shelves), the Dobsons finally managed to leave the house. 

“Remember,” Bee reminds them as they approach their neighbor’s house, “Abby and David adopted Neil only a month ago, so this is his first time meeting some new friends. He’s only a year younger than you. Be nice, okay? And don’t push too much if he’s shy. If you don’t know if he’ll be okay with a hug or something like that, just ask him yes or no first.”

“Okay,” the twins chorus back, before sprinting towards the door in hopes of pressing the doorbell first. 

(Aaron wins, but it’s a close thing.)

“Well hello, kiddos!” Abby answers the door with a grin. “David! Kevin! Neil! The Dobsons are here!”

“ANDREWWW! AARONNN!” Kevin, the Wymacks’ oldest, comes barreling out the door, wrapping both twins in a hug at the same time. Aaron hugs him back immediately, and Andrew pats him on the back twice dutifully with the hand not holding King Fluffkins before stepping away. 

“Kev, let’s let the boys come in,” David calls from inside. “It’s pretty hot outside today, and I think they wanna meet Neil!”

“Okay, dad!” Kevin takes both twins’ hands and drags them forcibly through the doorway into the mudroom. “Neil is my new little brother,” he explains seriously as the twins take off their shoes. “He didn’t come from mama’s tummy. A nice lady came to our house a little while ago and he was in the car with her and that’s how he got here.” 

The twins nod thoughtfully and Bee suppresses her laughter as she wraps Abby and David in a hug. 

“Sorry we’re late! How’ve you two been?” 

“Good!” Abby replies, as David retreats back into the house to bring Neil. “Neil’s been super excited about meeting the boys, though whether or not he’ll show it is a coin toss.” 

“Well, I’m excited to finally meet him! I’m sure he’s even cuter in person than the pictures you’ve sent, but I gotta know. Are his eyes really that blue?”

“Yeah, actually. I was surprised too. He has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.” 

“Speaking of my favorite little redhead,” David announces, a slip of a boy with messy red hair and startling blue eyes, who Bee can only assume is Neil, perched on his shoulders. 

“Hi, buddy,” Abby smiles up at him. “You’re so tall! What happened to my little Neil?”

“I’m the same, mama,” he giggles, plopping his chin onto the top of David’s head. “I’m just sitting on dada.” 

As if to prove his point, Neil shifts back and forth in his seat until his dad gets the message and lifts him over his head to lower him to the ground. 

“See?” he says, a confident grin plastered across his face. An expression that falls quickly once he realizes that they have an audience. In a flash, the boy is nothing but a tuft of curly hair and a single eye peeking out from behind David’s legs.

“You must be Neil,” Bee says, bending down to get eye-level with him. “Your mommy has told me all about you!” Gesturing towards the two tiny blonds, still fumbling to put away their shoes, she continues. “The boy in the green shirt is my son Aaron, and the one in the gray is my other son Andrew.”

“Hi,” the twins say in unison. 

Neil’s eyes go wide. 

“They look the same,” he whispers. 

“Yeah, they’re twins,” Kevin pipes up from where he’s impatiently sock-skating figure eights on the floor. “Which means they have super cool twin mind reading powers. That’s why they say stuff at the same time. Andrew told me.”

Neil turns to the twins for confirmation, and the two of them exchange looks before turning back to face him. Aaron makes a lopsided attempt at a smirk and Andrew only raises his eyebrows and shrugs. Neil nods gravely at the two of them before going back to clinging to his dad’s pant leg. 

“Does anyone wanna play exy with me?” Kevin asks, now that the shoes are put away and everyone is standing around in the entryway. 

“Yeah,” Aaron says, dragging the bag of exy gear from where it sits next to Bee. “I brought my stuff!”  
“Awesome! How bout you, Drew?”

Andrew scrunches his nose for a second before shaking his head no, tightening his grip on King Fluffkins.

“How bout you, Neil?” Kevin turns to his brother, tone considerably softer. “You wanna play?” 

The tuft of hair shakes from behind David’s leg and Kevin takes it in stride. 

“Okay,” he throws an arm around his little brother and ruffles his hair before tugging Aaron outside, already rambling about how his dad taught him a new move and how he just  _ has _ to teach it to him.

“Your turn to sit out in the sun,” Abby teases, elbowing her husband lightly in the side. 

“Aw, again?” 

“Hey, I had to last time, Mr. I-teach-little-league-exy-and-I-love-my-job.”

“Here I was, trying to separate my home and work life,” David replies, even as he detaches Neil and laughs his way out the back door. 

“Hey bud, how about you show Andrew where you keep your toys?” Abby asks, ushering the two remaining kids towards the living room. “I see you brought King Fluffkins back for another visit! Did you know, Neil has a kitty cat of his own?” 

Andrew shakes his head.

“Well then, why don’t we go find it?” 

“Okay.” 

Neil runs ahead to the living room, and by the time the others arrive, he’s already sitting cross-legged on one side of the couch, a stuffed gray kitten placed in his lap. 

“See? Why don’t you two play while us mommies catch up in the kitchen? You’ll be able to see us from here, alright?”

The two boys only nod, and the silence is deafening. 

“Right, well, just call us if you need anything!” 

Andrew pushes himself onto the other end of the couch and cradles King in his arms, turning to study Neil from afar. 

Knowing Andrew, it’s entirely possible that neither of them plan to interact with each other for the rest of the playdate. Not exactly what Bee had planned, but Abby  _ did _ warn her that Neil hadn’t met anyone outside the family before them. 

“Here, let me get you a drink,” Abby suggests, linking arms with Bee and leading her into the kitchen. “Water or soda?” 

“Do you have any Spr-”

Before she can even finish the sentence, Abby places a can of Sprite in front of her. 

“You know me so well.”

“I mean, knowing someone for eight years’ll do that,” Abby jokes. 

“Fair point.” 

Abby grabs herself a Dr. Pepper before leaning on the counter next to Bee. 

“Thank you, by the way, for giving me the idea of getting Neil an adoption present.”

“Of course. Letting them loose in a Toys R Us is one way of winning a little kid’s heart, though I did nearly have a heart attack Aaron couldn’t reach a toy and Drew promptly tried to climb a shelf, even though he was only two and was barely walking. I swear, Aaron was standing there like he was fully prepared to catch him if he fell.” 

“Kev was absolutely obsessed with the idea of finding the perfect toy for Neil, and he dragged him all around the store until they got to the stuffed animal aisle and that was just  _ it _ for him.” 

“Yeah, the stuffed animal has a special place in my boys’ hearts,” Bee laughs. “Andrew grabbed King Fluffkins the minute we walked in and wouldn’t let go. I had to pry it from his hands so the cashier could scan it and if looks could kill… Aaron, though, he spent half an hour in that aisle hugging different stuffed animals to see which one was the softest, and I had to tell him what half of the animals were. And then he settled on Fox, who he named after assuming that’s what it was. Poor thing threw a fit when he found out it was a puppy, though now he makes sure that Fox hears his bedtime story every night, so I don’t think he holds much of a grudge.” 

“Yeah…” Abby’s tone turns serious. “I told you the basics of Neil’s adoption already, right?”

“Yup. Too high risk for another pregnancy after Kev, Neil was just added to the foster system, you guys met him once and then he just stole your heart.”

“Right. But I didn’t tell you the details of exactly how he got into the system in the first place.” 

“I’m assuming some kind of bad parenting on his birth parents’ parts?”

“Probably worse than you’d think. His mother is dead, and his father is serving a life sentence in prison.” 

“Oh my god,” Bee places her can onto the counter. “Wait… he didn’t-”

“He did. Murdered her, among others. I don’t think Neil saw anything, but his father was only found out after a neighbor called CPS after Neil ran away to her house and asked her to hide him.” 

“Goodness… I can’t imagine how the poor kid must have felt. And he’s so young, too.” 

“I know. The first couple weeks after we brought him home, he’d run to his room every time any of us raised our voices, and the first time Kev raised his hand for a high five from him he flinched. And you know how affectionate Kev is, so he took it really hard. He wouldn’t let us hug him for two and a half weeks, and it got to the point where Kev would come to us in the middle of the night after Neil had fallen asleep to ask us what he was doing wrong. How are you supposed to explain this sort of thing? I only told him that Neil’s last home hadn’t been very nice and that he was getting used to being with us, but there’s only so much I can explain away. Especially since Neil still gets nightmares sometimes, and I don’t know how to comfort him. I feel like the house is too big and empty and I’m just too small to hold it and make it home.” 

“Hey,” Bee reaches out and places Abby’s soda next to hers before pulling her into a hug. “I completely get where you’re coming from. The twins’ birth father never stuck around, and their birth mom just couldn’t take care of them, so when they got to me, they were so used to having to find food from themselves that they refused to wait until mealtimes because they didn’t trust having set times to eat. I promise, things will get better for Neil. It’s only been a month, and he’s still new to all this. You’re doing everything you can, and I’m proud of you.” 

“Thanks, Bee,” Abby sniffs, stepping back to grab a box of tissues and wipe her eyes. “What did I do to deserve a best friend like you?”

“You’re you, silly. And you deserve everything because of that.” 

“God, I’m such a sap,” she sniffs again. “Don’t you dare make me start crying without warning again.” 

“Letting out emotion is healthy, dear, just cry it out.” 

“Don’t you get all psychiatrist-Bee on me,” Abby gives a watery smile, waving a reprimanding finger at her. “Or else I’ll only be calling you Dr. Dobson from now on.”

“Noooooooooooo,” Bee groans dramatically. “It sounds so  _ formal. _ ” 

“I know,” Abby giggles. “Isn’t it just  _ awful _ ?” 

“The  _ worst _ ,” Bee snickers. “Don’t you ever use my work name ever again.” 

“I won’t,” Abby assures her. “We should probably check on Andrew and Neil.” 

“Probably.” 

The pair make their way over to the edge of the kitchen to peer into the living room, where Neil and Andrew are still sitting, studying each other. 

“They’re so cute,” Abby sighs, knocking shoulders with Bee. “We got some adorable kids.” 

“I know, right? It’s not creepy to watch them like this, right?”

“No, of course not. We’re being diligent moms.” 

“ _ Diligent _ , right.” 

Abby rests her head on Bee’s shoulder as they turn to watch the boys. 

After a solid three minutes of silence, to both womens’ surprise, Andrew speaks up.

“Can I pet your cat, yes or no?” 

“Yes,” Neil says, scooting forwards until he’s within arms reach. “His name is Sir Fat Cat McCatterson.” 

Andrew reaches out and reverently scratches Sir Fat Cat McCatterson behind the ears. 

“Mine’s name is King Fluffkins.”

“Can I pet him, yes or no?” Neil says, mimicking Andrew’s question. 

“She’s a girl.” 

“But girls are queens, aren’t they?”

“ _ Damn right they are, _ ” Bee whispers under her breath. 

“ _ Hell yeah _ ,” Abby agrees. “ _ I trained him well _ .” 

“Yeah, usually,” Andrew replies. “But King Fluffkins sounds better than Queen Fluffkins and she likes that name better.” 

“Oh, okay.” Neil pauses for a moment before trying again. “Can I pet her, yes or no?”

“Yes.” Andrew ceremoniously scoops up King before passing her to Neil, who places Sir into Andrew’s lap in exchange. 

“She’s very soft,” Neil says, smoothing the fur on King Fluffkins’ back. 

“It’s because she’s very old,” Andrew says matter-of-factly, patting Sir on the tail. “Mommy’s washed her a lot of times.”

“Ohhhh. Sir Fat Cat McCatterson is still a baby, I think. He’s very new.”

Andrew nods understandingly, and the two of them sit in silence again, a silence that is almost immediately broken when an exy ball knocks into the window on the backyard side of the room. (Abby, Andrew, and Neil barely flinch, but Bee makes a squeal that really isn’t loud enough to be mentioned but was definitely still there.) 

A muffled  _ SORRY _ is barely audible, but Abby just nods at Kevin and gestures for them to continue on with their game. 

“Do you play exy too?” Neil asks as the boys trade cats once more. 

“Sometimes. What about you?”

“Sometimes. Kev and dada are teaching me, but Kev’s racquets are really big and kinda heavy.” 

“Yeah, Kev is too tall. That’s why Aaron and I have our own. You can borrow ours sometimes if you want.” 

“Okay,” Neil smiles shyly before turning the conversation back to the stuffed animals. “Does King Fluffkins like exy?”

“Yeah, but cats aren’t good at playing. Also, mommy only lets me play with her inside because otherwise she gets really muddy.”

“How do you play exy inside?”

“It’s not the same, cause King Fluffkins only has a cat brain so she’s not very smart. Aaron has a stuffie too. His name is Fox, so we play together. Basically we try to help the stuffies push the ball past the other person, kinda like scoring a goal. I always win though, cause King Fluffkins is bigger than Fox.” 

“Can we play?” 

“Okay,” Andrew agrees. “But Kev and Aaron took all the stuff outside.” 

“Here, lemme see if I have one,” Bee says, digging through the toy bag she’d brought. “Aha!” she emerges victorious after a few seconds of nothing but snack bags and a few packages of wet wipes. The two boys move to sit on the hardwood floor, and Bee rolls the ball towards them. (Andrew gets to it first, but promptly hands it to Neil.)

“Thank you, mommy.” 

“Thank you, Andrew’s mama.” 

“Please, Neil, call me Bee.” She smiles down at him, one hand resting on his head. “I’m friends with your mommy, so you can just call me by my name.” 

“Okay,” Neil nods. “Thank you, Bee.” 

“You’re very welcome, honey.” 

“Oh! Honey, like bumblebees! Can I call you bumblebee?”

“Just like bumblebees,” Abby laughs. “And of course you can call me bumblebee.” 

“Okay!” Neil grins up at her before turning back to Andrew, ball in hand. “Now what?”

“Roll it towards me, and King Fluyffkins will pass it back. Then you can help Sir Fat Cat McCatterson do the same thing.” 

Neil pushes the ball gently towards Andrew, near silent on the wood floor, and Andrew, King Fluffkins’ paw in hand, hits it back. Neil copies him, and they pass it straight back and forth in focused silence for a little while. 

“Now I’m gonna try to get the ball past you, and you and Sir make sure that I don’t score any goals.” 

Neil doesn’t know any better, but Bee can tell that Andrew is going easy on him. Which is probably why both Dobsons’ eyes widen when Neil -Sir Fat Cat McCatterson- hits the ball so fast that it narrowly misses Andrew’s knee as it passes. 

“Good shot.”

“Thanks,” Neil suddenly looks very interested on the fluffy spots on Sir’s ears, but his smile curves up more on one side. 

“ _ He didn’t smile at us like that for weeks, _ ” Abby whispers, amazed.

“ _ And Drew doesn’t take to people this quickly, usually, _ ” Bee adds. 

“ _ I think they’re good for each other, don’t you think? _ ” 

“ _ Yeah, I’m glad they get the chance to be friends. _ ”

Just as Andrew sends a shot flying past Neil, the back door slams open and two very sweaty kids and a laughing David come stampeding into the kitchen. 

“Mama! Me and Aaron played against dada and we scored on him TWICE!” Kevin shrieks. “He said that if we scored on him then we could get popsicles so now we got one for me and one for Aaron!” 

“Good job, Kev!” Abby cheers. “Do you boys want any popsicles too?” 

Andrew and Neil promptly ignore their game and turn around, eyes owlish with excitement, nodding furiously. 

Ten minutes later, Bee is trying to wipe the sticky remains of one blue raspberry and one cherry popsicle from King Fluffkins’ fur and both of the twins’ faces. (King Fluffkins is already orange to begin with, so the red stain shouldn’t be too visible after she washes her later.) 

“Heyheyheyhey Drew Neil do you guys wanna play the next game with us? Dada says he can ref, and we can play with two people per team!” 

“Okay,” Neil agrees, and Andrew follows wordlessly behind him as the group moves outside. 

“We can’t let Andrew and Aaron be on the same team,” Kevin explains as Neil moves to stand next to him. “It’s not fair if they have twin powers.” 

Neil hums in agreement, and promptly walks over to tug on Andrew’s sleeve. Andrew goes willingly, and Kevin follows suit, passing a bright orange practice jersey to Aaron. 

“Here, what position do you wanna play?” Andrew asks Neil.

“Kev’s been teaching me how to be a striker, so I only know how to do that.” 

“Okay, I’ll be goalie, then.” 

“Alright, I’ll countdown to the start of the game!” David calls, whistle in hand. “3… 2… 1…”

“We got this, Aaron,” Kevin whispers.

“Go!” 

(Spoiler alert: They did not, in fact “got this.” Neil is much faster and bolder than Aaron anticipated, and Andrew plays more than he let on.)

“Even though we lost, we still have to say good game,” Kevin instructs his teammate. “It’s part of the rules.”

After a few minutes of mild chaos, the four of them figure out a system to all shake hands at the same time. (Kevin insisted upon it.)

“Hey kids, I think it’s time for Andrew, Aaron, and I to go home,” Bee says. “It’s almost dinnertime, and the twins still have to take a bath.” 

“AWWWWWWWW” the kids chorus in unison. 

“I don’t want them to leaveeeeeee,” Kevin whines, and Neil latches onto his brother’s arm in support. 

“I know, Kev,” Abby wraps an arm around her sons. “They can come over some other time, okay?” 

“Tomorrow?” Aaron grabs Bee’s hand, jumping up on his tiptoes. 

“We’ll see, bud. Remember Renee is coming over?”

“Maybe, if Abby says it’s okay.” 

“I’ll text you later,” Abby confirms. 

“Alright, say goodbye to Kevin and Neil, boys.” 

“Byeeeeeeee,” the twins chime as Kevin runs over to pull them into a tight hug. 

Neil waves goodbye, reverting to a version of his shy self from when they first met. The twins tug their shoes on and make sure they have everything they came with. (Aaron left a racquet in the backyard, but Andrew whispers something in his ear and he nods and tells the Wymacks that they can hold onto it for Neil.) 

Bee is following Aaron out the door when, still holding King Fluffkins, Andrew turns and walks back into the house. 

“Hug, yes or no?” 

Neil looks at him, mouth slightly open, head tilted slightly in confusion. 

“You don’t have to,” Andrew adds. 

“Yes,” Neil says, opening his arms wide, letting Andrew step into them. 

The hug is a little clumsy, with two stuffed cats twisted somewhere in their grasps, but Andrew stays put until Neil steps back himself. 

“Bye bye, Andrew.” 

“Bye bye, Neil.” 

Abby and Bee certainly aren’t outwardly fawning over their interaction, but it’s a close thing. 

“I’m glad you two got to meet Neil,” Bee says as they walk back to their house, one hand in each of the twins’. 

“Me too,” Aaron says cheerily, swinging his arm. “Neil is very nice. And he’s very good at exy.” 

Andrew only nods in agreement, and Aaron runs ahead to play the hopscotch that the twins had drawn on the walkway to the front door three days ago. 

“Mommy,” Andrew mumbles as Bee pulls a box of spaghetti from the pantry. 

“Yes, Drew?” 

“I think Neil is amazing.”

Bee looks down at him, and he stares levelly back at her, expression completely earnest in a way that only a child’s can be. 

“I think so too, love,” she replies, pushing his hair back and out of his eyes. “I think so too.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed (this idea just got a hold of me and I wrote this in two days) and if you'd like, come say hi to me on Tumblr @youve-cath-to-be-kitten-me! (+Writing Blog! @notsomagicath) Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> ~ Cath


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